950: Mystery Solved

Title text: The Roanoke Lost Colonists founded Roanoke, the Franklin Expedition reached the Pacific in 2009 when the Northwest Passage opened, and Jimmy Hoffa currently heads the Teamsters Union--he just started going by 'James'.

The aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart's plane comes back to land after it went missing in 1937. Earhart was presumed dead and that her plane went down sometime during her journey. But, this comic supposes that it just took her 74 years to fly around the Earth without really aging a day. This means that her average speed was under one mile a day; although she says it's a long flight, her plane was not designed for air-to-air refueling and did not carry enough fuel to complete the trip without landing to refuel, and even if could somehow remain airborne nonstop, no plane can fly that at such a slow speed.

Another possibility is that she did not just fly around the earth, but flew very fast (near light speed) for 74 years to return without having aged much. This would of course not explain why she thinks it is a long trip around the earth, or how she would accomplish this feat in a twin-engine monoplane... (One "possible" explanation given in Star Trek: Voyager involves her being transported to another part of the galaxy.)

The title text proposed a few more solutions to mysteries including the lost colonists of Roanoke, who were one of the first groups to come to North America, suddenly disappeared, and leaving their colony untouched. The Franklin Expedition was a British voyage in 1845 to study the Northwest Passage that also disappeared somewhere in northern Canada. Jimmy Hoffa was the famous Teamsters Union (currently headed by Jimmy's son, James Phillip Hoffa) leader who went missing in 1975 and declared dead in 1982 (possibly murdered). The comic is implying that Jimmy's "son" is actually Jimmy himself (whose actual name was James Riddle Hoffa).

Amelia Earhart, the Roanoke colony and Jimmy Hoffa are all referenced in 1501: Mysteries.

Discussion

The Northwest Passage is a sea route from the North Atlantic to the Pacific, north of the North American continent. It has not been "open" until very recent years; the icepack extends far enough south that it is not generally navigable. 75.103.23.206 16:12, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Another possible explanation is that the world includes more than just Earth. Amelia might have had to travel at or over the speed of light, which would also explain the time effects. 108.162.246.11 21:23, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

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